"There are original Gosho written to Sairenbo. This Gosho is not one of them. The Sho Ho Jisso Sho is thought to have been written by three separate people. This is a conclusion consistent among serious Nichiren Buddhist scholars. The first part was likely a fragment of a real Gosho written by Nichiren. If you notice, the first section is perfectly Orthodox. The text then shifts twice in writing style and supports Tendai Original Enlightenment. The text not only has no original, but is not listed in any early index nor are there any early copies by reliable sources like Nikko. That is not true of all letters to Sairenbo. Some do. The Sho Ho Jisso Sho does not. It has textual problems and promotes a philosophy foreign to Nichiren's central works. Its a fake."

"There are original Gosho written to Sairenbo. This Gosho is not one of them. The Sho Ho Jisso Sho is thought to have been written by three separate people. This is a conclusion consistent among serious Nichiren Buddhist scholars. The first part was likely a fragment of a real Gosho written by Nichiren. If you notice, the first section is perfectly Orthodox. The text then shifts twice in writing style and supports Tendai Original Enlightenment. The text not only has no original, but is not listed in any early index nor are there any early copies by reliable sources like Nikko. That is not true of all letters to Sairenbo. Some do. The Sho Ho Jisso Sho does not. It has textual problems and promotes a philosophy foreign to Nichiren's central works. Its a fake."

I don't know who Mark Strumpf is, but his conclusion, "It is a fake", is not supported by what he wrote immediately before.

This is part of the problem with the discourse on Nichiren online - everything has to be black and white, with good guys and bad guys, those who are categorically right and categorically wrong. The first part presents a nuanced view, but the conclusion jumps to an absolute judgment. The inability to have a nuanced view, to balance uncertainties and ambiguities, to me, is a reflection of a small and petty mind that clings to (false) certainties - this is a problem in untrained and undisciplined beings that has been clearly diagnosed by the great Buddhist doctors.

Let's not be those petty types anymore.

“Once you have given up the ghost, everything follows with dead certainty, even in the midst of chaos.”
-Henry Miller

"Language is the liquid that we're all dissolved in.
Great for solving problems, after it creates the problems."
-Modest Mouse

"Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world!"
-The Grateful Dead

LOL. IIRC, in the Vimalakirti sutra, the proper approach to understanding sunyata is a matter of getting used to it.

His holiness Dalai Lama once commented that it is this view that makes it bearable when we come across atrocities and human suffering.
not a direct quote...

i get that..We know it is an illusion somewhere , where existence and non existence meet. and He did use the word "Bearable" .

getting used to it

comes back to my statement that was knocked down by Admin that it is not a philosophy but just a view.

It does become a philosophy for it's Buddhist No.1 lol and it thrusts one into the reality that everything is relying on so many things just to be.
so there is a broader sense of compassion and understanding produced towards everything. then the real gratitude of every little thing that goes with one and other for something to appear in this reality to exist.

now what i was trying to convey was this. When Rinpoche embarked on slowly ....very slowly to lead me into this correct understanding of the view he more than once adamantly said > not a quote

"When talking about Sunyata you create Karma . It is vital that you understand what it is before you start trying to get people to understand it. Be careful , very careful when talking about it."

so this might help people who have read me when talking about sunyata...it's not so much i am anal about it but careful.

i think it is like this with all buddhist teachings...

the moment you start in on talking about a subject , a term, a view ...your Karmic producing scale sky rockets..

you are not discussing a movie you saw or some conversation about math even....you are engaging in the Buddha's Path , Teachings, Trainings etc...this is all there in order to make life altering moves and understandings and motives and all that goes with it.

there is great responsibility...This is why forgeries and people's good intentions can cause so much damage...
Take some fake Gosho written five hundred years ago after The Master's passing. anyone reading it then and into the future is connecting with the Karma produced from it's creation...The person who created it will have to wait till the universe goes into the big crunch before karma is stopped being created and even then all those sentients who used the forgery to understand Buddha's teachings still have it in their mind streams and need to flush it...it could take kalpas.

We've been wrestling with identifying authentic teachings since the Buddha's parinirvana.

There are at least some scholarly opinions that believe no conclusion can be made about the authenticity of this letter because it is consistent with authentic letters. I linked to an article about this.

If identifying authentic writings is important to you, it would seem to make sense that one should actually delve into the subject instead of just reacting to comments and remarks from some voice on the internet that this particular writing or that is authentic or not authentic.

Yelling "Fire" doesn't actually mean there is a fire.

“Once you have given up the ghost, everything follows with dead certainty, even in the midst of chaos.”
-Henry Miller

"Language is the liquid that we're all dissolved in.
Great for solving problems, after it creates the problems."
-Modest Mouse

"Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world!"
-The Grateful Dead

We've been wrestling with identifying authentic teachings since the Buddha's parinirvana.

There are at least some scholarly opinions that believe no conclusion can be made about the authenticity of this letter because it is consistent with authentic letters. I linked to an article about this.

If identifying authentic writings is important to you, it would seem to make sense that one should actually delve into the subject instead of just reacting to comments and remarks from some voice on the internet that this particular writing or that is authentic or not authentic.

Yelling "Fire" doesn't actually mean there is a fire.

if that is directed at me ....

For a while I did not know we were discussing an inauthentic gosho or the likes of.
i must have missed something...
i do not know why there is a mix up...
but i was replying to this

LOL. IIRC, in the Vimalakirti sutra, the proper approach to understanding sunyata is a matter of getting used to it.

i was bandying about in my mind whether it was authentic or not yesterday. well after reading the OP.

If you read me originally my concern was and i went on about Original Enlightenment and not about authenticity .
i googled Shoho Jisso sho and gakki library came up withThe true aspect of all phenomena and was going to read it...then today i got sidetracked...and just a while ago read illazzara's post...

ok glad i did not read it now ...was going to and then discuss it...i was not screaming fire Q...thats not how this unfolded for me...

i hate this medium!!!!!

i was just trying to help out people "Q" and show them there is no place for folly.

I did not say you were. If you see my responses to Illaraza, I think its obvious who I think IS yelling fire.

ok ta .

thing is and this is for everyone.
i really devout my life to this...on and off yes...but for a year and half i have not missed a day of practice except for three in a row when i tried to quit again...lol..

i want to know what the Master Knew...my only hope of that is here it seems.

ilazzarra is my type of guy...fanatically Nichiren correct to a flaw...thats what i want to be as well..

why

cause there is a problem with fake stuff...and the break up of ski and shoshu proved it for me..

i actually begged gohonzon to show me the truth about this religion...might sound megalomaniacal but a year later the break up happened...and the real deal started to show up for me...down to me leaving totally and taking up Tibetan Buddhism where i learned what Nichiren sort of leaned wandering around japan.

so like i was concerned with the original enlightenment stuff in your post....and went there and only went to unauthentic when marketex started in about it ....

so dis Nichiren Daishonin believe in hongaku/original enlightenment ....and can we find out about it besides the gosho in question

i love you Q...for helping and putting up with me...you truly are a good friend in buddhism and are able to take care of us loon boons...lol

so there is no hongaku according to Nichiren DaiShonin ?
he was not into original enlightenment and some guy decided He was?

i'm confused now.

Did Ven Nichiren actually ever say hongaku? I know that it is considered consonant with his teachings, but did he himself ever use the term?

I am wondering if one cause for confusion is that this might be an association other people after Ven Nichiren's time are making, namely the association between Ven Nichiren's dharma & hongaku. It could be right, but there are many hongaku, as many hongaku as Buddhists sects that believe in hongaku. This suspicious could be wrong too.

Unfortunately I am not educated enough in the matter to know the answer.

so there is no hongaku according to Nichiren DaiShonin ?
he was not into original enlightenment and some guy decided He was?

i'm confused now.

Did Ven Nichiren actually ever say hongaku? I know that it is considered consonant with his teachings, but did he himself ever use the term?

I am wondering if one cause for confusion is that this might be an association other people after Ven Nichiren's time are making, namely the association between Ven Nichiren's dharma & hongaku. It could be right, but there are many hongaku, as many hongaku as Buddhists sects that believe in hongaku. This suspicious could be wrong too.

Unfortunately I am not educated enough in the matter to know the answer.

AFAIK he did not actually use this term. Later scholars have used the term as a label for certain ideas that appear in the body of writings attributed to him - some authentic, some that may or may not be authentic, and others widely agreed to be inauthentic.

You're probably on to something is raising the questions about whether the use of the term is partly to blame for the confusion.

“Once you have given up the ghost, everything follows with dead certainty, even in the midst of chaos.”
-Henry Miller

"Language is the liquid that we're all dissolved in.
Great for solving problems, after it creates the problems."
-Modest Mouse

"Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world!"
-The Grateful Dead

He certainly accepted ichinen sanzen, I think in a orthodox sense. Hongaku was a big division within Tendai, some viewing it as license others viewing it as something expressed thru practice & precepts. lol I wonder if the hongaku dialog is putting words in Nichiren's mouth.

I used to practice Soto Zen, which accepts hongaku as a matter of course, so I really had no idea that it caused such consternation. At any rate, I don't think this letter espouses hongaku at all, at least not the "everything is perfect just the way it is" variety.

Part of the reason Hongaku has become a big issue is because of the waves of controversy stirred up by Critical Buddhism.

I only know Critical Buddhism as something of a parallel to EBT studies in Theravāda. I know it critiques tathāgatagarbha/buddhadhātu, which it accuses of being ātmavāda or svabhāvavāda or something of the like, their terminology being 'dhātuvāda'. But what is their actual impact? Can you elaborate on this if you are familiar? To me, Critical Buddhism is just an abstract academic movement, because I am not similarly exposed.

Part of the reason Hongaku has become a big issue is because of the waves of controversy stirred up by Critical Buddhism.

I only know Critical Buddhism as something of a parallel to EBT studies in Theravāda. I know it critiques tathāgatagarbha/buddhadhātu, which it accuses of being ātmavāda or svabhāvavāda or something of the like, their terminology being 'dhātuvāda'. But what is their actual impact? Can you elaborate on this if you are familiar? To me, Critical Buddhism is just an abstract academic movement, because I am not similarly exposed.

I too wondered because i never heard of Critical Buddhism. what does it mean?

The thing is this...i exclaim i am bonkers over this whole hongaku thing...

thing is Original Enlightenment is totally different for me than others.

I kinda got the idea that people here at DW think Original enlightenment is the primal cause for all the possibilities to appear in our conventional reality.

the words innate are used ...then it's like it's tathgatagarhba and this also is tied to the above concept of source of all things.

i'm trying to join in with you guys but it ain't happenin' ...

I am perfectly satisfied that i won't know everything till i attain Buddhahood. Which causes a deep concern to wake up for me.

but we are talking about things no one knows ....this urge to get it down and nail it....has been done forever....

now to be honest i'm a little ticked that Nichiren Shonin never mentioned Hongagku !!!! and like i have devoted over a year to it's study and been told it's what it is all about....
This is the thing ...

If He avoided Hongaku there is a reason... He wanted us to take a certain path or view...He was all about View...and if He left out stuff there must have been a reason...He hounded us with correct view...

filling in the blanks with fake gosho is the worse thing a person could do in Lotus Buddhism..not denying them totally and you are in collusion with the prick who first did it.

did they want confusion...was there a jealousy to thwart us in the future with the bullshit....is it the work of demons....

we have to get back to the basics...we have the crew here to do it...even Coëmgenu helps out and he is not a Nichiren practitioner...but his love for this Buddhism shows through...

So i think we need to ease up on other teachings and stick to Nichiren's Teachings...purely...

you know i don't see Him teaching the Tien Tai....maybe we are not supposed to use the optics of Tien Tai that much....just saying....

but If He never used the Hongaku why are we discussing it.?

trying to understand His Teachings through other lenses is just wrong.

He certainly accepted ichinen sanzen, I think in a orthodox sense. Hongaku was a big division within Tendai, some viewing it as license others viewing it as something expressed thru practice & precepts. lol I wonder if the hongaku dialog is putting words in Nichiren's mouth.

Part of the reason Hongaku has become a big issue is because of the waves of controversy stirred up by Critical Buddhism.

I only know Critical Buddhism as something of a parallel to EBT studies in Theravāda. I know it critiques tathāgatagarbha/buddhadhātu, which it accuses of being ātmavāda or svabhāvavāda or something of the like, their terminology being 'dhātuvāda'. But what is their actual impact? Can you elaborate on this if you are familiar? To me, Critical Buddhism is just an abstract academic movement, because I am not similarly exposed.

I too wondered because i never heard of Critical Buddhism. what does it mean?

The thing is this...i exclaim i am bonkers over this whole hongaku thing...

thing is Original Enlightenment is totally different for me than others.

I kinda got the idea that people here at DW think Original enlightenment is the primal cause for all the possibilities to appear in our conventional reality.

the words innate are used ...then it's like it's tathgatagarhba and this also is tied to the above concept of source of all things.

i'm trying to join in with you guys but it ain't happenin' ...

Perhaps you are a Critical Buddhist! (I am only kidding. I say this sarcastically.) Critical Buddhism, afaik, is the Mahāyāna equivalent of "EBT studies". It is a movement that polemicizes against tathāgatagarbha & Buddha-nature.

I can only communicate to you my own understandings, however flawed they may be.

I would say think back to Ven Nāgārjuna's Analysis of Nirvāṇa/Nirvānaparīkṣā. The non-duality, or not-two-ness, established therein is the foundations, as I see it, of Tathāgatagarbha thought. He says, controversially, that there is no difference between nirvāṇa and saṃsāra. This is the foundations of hongaku as I see it. @Queequeg has used this metaphor before, and now I am unapologetically stealing it from him: there is a room in the dark with furniture. You wander in. The lights are out. You bump into furniture, have difficulty navigating, etc. The light is turned on. The room does not change, but now you can see the furniture.

The controversial part is when some people, possibly Ven Nichiren himself, possibly not, claim that the light was never off, and that you never experienced a difficulty navigating.

Hongaku is a late development. It might be consonant with Nichiren Buddhism, depending on the definition, but it might be dissonant, again depending on how you define it. IMO it is never "uncaveatedly" fine in Lotus Buddhism. Ven Zhìyǐ never mentions it. Ven Zhànrán polemicizes against it, saying that the teachings of 大乘起信論 ("Great Vehicle Awakening of Faith Treatise") were the teachings of "another school" (i.e. not the Lotus tradition, citation here). It is only later people, who reinterpret and change hongaku teachings that are OK with it.
[/quote]

Stone proposes the foundations of Tendai hongaku arose from early Pure Land thought. Though the concept was prominent in Tendai it is not the only prominent concept nor the only division experienced among the schools. There are plenty of examples before and after of varying interpretations of hongaku. The Tendai kanjin methods of discourse encouraged development, exploration, reinterpretation of concepts which went on over many hundreds of years so lots of stuff, including hongaku has been considered, reconsidered, discarded, adopted etc. The kamakura single practice schools, though prominent, only offer a narrow view of Tendai.